The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad, but a loosely connected system of safe havens where people escaping slavery were sheltered, fed, clothed, nursed, concealed, disguised, and instructed on their journey to freedom. Its operations were often kept secret to protect participants from civil law and slave-catchers, yet it became one of America’s greatest social, moral, and humanitarian endeavors and permanently shaped Ohio’s history through the thousands of runaway slaves who passed through or settled there. The Omar Inn, once located about 0.2 miles south of this site on the east side of present-day State Route 4, served as an Underground Railroad station, where runaway slaves were hidden in the livery stable until they could be moved safely to Seven Mile House just south of Sandusky. Thomas Bennitt established the inn around 1830, and it was later managed by the Reed and Gambee families. In 1842, Bennett gave parcels of farmland for the Omar Chapel and Cemetery, where Baptist and Methodist congregations shared the chapel until 1859, and abolitionism was undoubtedly preached and discussed; some supporters of the runaways who worshipped there are buried nearby.

Ohio · United States